November 2009 Archives

I'm at the Saxon Pub (sexy pad for the super bad) witnessing
Deadman, a young band of very serious young men who reference Springsteen, Van
Morison and The Bad in the same song. Three guitars, Hammond B3, drums and bass
ring out in the not half-filled club on a Tuesday night. I wonder if this is an
Austin thing, but I have stumbled on to unexpected musical oases all over the
world that never make the news, and I'm glad to be here. I have not been
prowling the club crawl in the Texas capital very much of late and there is not
a face on stage that I can put a name to, but the music is loud, heartfelt and
strong and it makes me smile and breathe just a little bit deeper than when
before I walked in.

Next week I travel to NYC to play a show honoring Levon
Helm's lifetime of song and here is evidence that he has not spent it in vain.
Here is evidence of his and the rest of The Band's footprint, not just in sound
or even in elements of style that owe nothing to the era of MTV but rather to
the same indefinable thrift store spirit that will never be about a big payday
or glossy two page spread, but rather to a feeling of being on the border of
something bigger than all of us. That thing is Spirit, the thing that Madison
Ave has always chased, that every truck commercial or CMT video has aped, that
Rumi chanted about, that Picasso tried to catch in thicker and thicker layers
of paint.